Many Voices

This is all that remains of the Welsh Church built more than a hundred years ago in a little township south west of Ballarat. The congregation here spoke and wrote and worshipped in Welsh. So many languages spoken on the goldfields; Chinese, Italian, Welsh, Gaelic, German were all significant languages. 

Now they are all subsumed into English.

Just recently someone is putting up little signs in the local and ancient Wadawurrung language which has been spoken here for tens of thousands of years. I would love to be able to speak even a little of this first and original language.

Blossom August 2017

The spring blossom is well and truly  out in Melbourne, but in colder Ballarat it's still mostly  buds.
I'm walking down Sturt Street every work morning now, and yesterday I saw this lovely cherry tree dropping pink blossom over the footpath.

Autumn to winter 2017

Canadian Creek May 2017

I've been pottering around Canadian Creek, just near Poverty Point trying to match up the mining settlements on the nineteenth century survey maps with what is here now. This spot was full of people and their mining gear and huts 150 years ago.

The land has been mined and lived on and covered with rubbish and cleaned up and now replanted with local trees and shrubs. They are growing well, as you can see when I stand Mr Pip against the last one on the right of this photo.

Custard tarts

This is the best custard tart in Ballarat, possibly in Victoria. Better than the Portuguese style in Journal cafe, better than Chinese Dan tarts. Rich, soft & flaky pastry. Sweet cool custard inside.
Plating Works makes these. They sell at the Lakeside Markets and in Wilsons - occasionally.

Custard tart, white nectarine, Queensland green tea. Perfect Autumn snack.

Summer lushness

I walked down through Victoria Park to see the annual begonia display in the Botanical Gardens by Lake Wendouree.

The luxury of the cool green grass in the gardens, when all the city is parched this late end of summer, was wonderful.

The conservatory was already full of people who love begonias.

I participated too, in the happiness of masses of wildly fluorescent, frilly and fleshy-petalled begonias.

Once begonia flowers were modest, tough little rainforest plants like these.

Now here they are, in their humid glasshouse, safe from the dry, alien summer of Ballarat. A triumph  of a hundred years of gardening art.

Illuminations

Coming in to Ballarat for the White Night illuminations. 

In a minute the sun went down 

the lights came on.

A beautiful night

Blood Plums

This is the last of the plums. We've had good crops of cherry plums, green-gold greengages, and blood plums this summer. Blood plums, the last to ripen, are my favourite of all plums.

Mr Pip looked so hopeful

I shared it with him

Lake walk late evening

Despite the dog's best efforts

This evening we got to the lake a little later than usual. 

It feels as if the summer is finally cooling down a little, gentler and autumnal.

Birthday Banquet & phone

I have started to use a mobile phone. For the first time. With trepidation. But I need to be able to ring people and services - and to be rung in turn - if I make a long trip.
Today I finally worked out how to download pictures from the mobile phone. Early this month Yin and I went to Kambei restaurant and celebrated his birthday with a (modest) banquet.

Cool Summer 2017

I've had a long break of two years during which I've been sick and got better, worked on and off on a thesis and stopped taking photos.

I've tried Facebook but it isn't as much a pleasure as blogging.

There's a rosella outside my window and blood plums ripening on the plum tree. I feel like celebrating living in Ballarat again.

Here's town and city in the eighteen seventies with the Yarrowee River in between.

Deep winter, July 2015

Seven in the morning.  It's minus 4 centigrade. Yesterday morning it was minus 6. Really cold and beautiful. Even the dog hesitated before going out. His nose, my nose, both numb.

We waited for the sun to rise before going out for our walk.

   It was still very cold!

The marigolds have kept blooming as the winter has been mild until a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

It was icier, more frosted and slippery, outside our protected garden. We had to walk very, very carefully.

Temple of cedar and corrugated iron

I've just come back from a week in TFNQ (an acronym on the signs on state government buildings in Cairns). It stands for Tropical Far North Queensland.
It's the first time I have been up to Cairns.
I was visiting my eldest son who is very much settled in up here. I mostly pottered around, admiring the veggie patch with the new orchard of tropical fruit trees and going for easy walks in some of the tourist spots. Mossman Gorge was one which has retained a powerful beauty despite the walking tracks, viewing platforms signs and numerous visitors.
I didn't take photos as I left my camera behind in Ballarat, and I only really regret that because I like putting up photos on this blog.

We went up to the nearby Atherton Tablelands and Jake did kindly act as my camera man for our visit to the Chinese Temple. Miraculously it has survived the dispersal of the Chinese community living around the temple in Atherton for WWII (Anglo) soldier settlers. It was saved by local Chinese families and it is now cared for by the National Trust.
It is a beautiful, but simple construction, well-designed to survive the tropical climate.

This temple is a perfect combination of  corrugated iron

Local timber such as cedar

and together with carvings and fittings from China

it was built to suit the needs of the local Chinese community up here.

Look at this nifty and elegant chimney for the little side kitchen of the temple.

I haven't seen this building in a coffee table book of vernacular Australian buildings, or of corrugated Aussie beauties.  I'm not an expert or regular student of architecture, so I am ready to be corrected here, but I think this is another example of how only Anglo-Australian heritage is considered to be the 'real Australian ' heritage.  A loss for us all.
I'm reluctantly adding a label Chinese Australian heritage to this post. Reluctantly because it is in some ways selecting out what is not Anglo-Australian from our culture and our community.